California Businesses Fleeing the State

One year after Sacramento business heavyweight Waste Connections announced its departure from the Golden State’s miserable business climate, even larger area employers are throwing in the towel and saying goodbye to California. If we don’t make California a better place to do business – and soon – this story will be repeated again and again with tragic consequences for working families everywhere.

Comcast is closing its California call centers and moving those jobs to lower-cost states such as Oregon and Washington. That means 300 people in Sacramento – and 1,000 statewide – are out of work December 1.

Campbell’s Soup is shutting the doors on a tomato processing plant in South Sacramento, putting 700 more people out of work by July. Like many other employers, they noted the high cost of doing business in this particular plant as a reason for closing up shop.

The next big domino to fall might be VSP, the largest vision insurance provider in the country. Headquartered in Rancho Cordova, it employs more than 2,000 people from the region and they have actually added jobs in the past two years despite the terrible economy.

But VSP is worried about how our state is implementing Obamacare, and fear that California regulators might be shutting them out of a huge piece of business for no good reason. If that happens, VSP has said that it might not make sense for them to do business in California.

Thousands of jobs are disappearing or at risk. I can’t believe that California legislators and regulators can read these stories day after day and not change their minds about what we need to be doing to get this state’s economic engine firing on all cylinders again.

These companies are complaining about costs – let’s lower them. That means lower taxes, lower energy costs, lower insurance and workers compensation costs and more. Let’s not deregulate this state, but let’s right-regulate it, with smart rules that let families know that we understand how important jobs are, and that we are going to work with companies to keep them in the state.

I’m furious about this flood of pink slips because I know that it doesn’t have to be this way. California is setting itself up for failure with policies that are running employers out of this state – at a time when the unemployment rate continues to hover at more than 10 percent, one of the highest in the nation. I will work with any legislator who will join me on my mission to turn around the California economy and put people back to work.